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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



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A COMEDY OF HISTORICAL ERRORS 



VARIOUS AUTHORS 



With Notes and Corrections of Errors 



BV 



HISTORICUS. 



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C. S ROBINSON & CO., 
PRINCETON. N. J. 



It 







A COMEDY OF HISTORICAL 
ERRORS. 

Mr. Editor. — There appeared in the 
Princeton Press a short time since the 
following statement copied from the 
Princetonian : " The sycamores in the 
Dean's yard were planted in 1767 by order 
of the Trustees to commemorate the re- 
sistance to the Stamp Act." 

Permit one who knows the facts to 
state in reference to this matter, (1) that 
these trees were not planted in 1767; (2) 
that they were not planted to commemo- 
rate the resistance to the Stamp Act, or 
any other event ; and (3) that the resist- 
ance to the Stamp Act did not take place 
in 1767. These trees are the survivors of 
a row of sycamores that were planted by 
order of the Trustees in 1765 in the front 
of the college campus. It is a mere co- 
incidence that 1765 was also the date of 
the resistance to the Stamp Act. 

While correcting this series of mistakes, 
permit him to allude to some others which 
have been made in the sketches of Prince- 
ton which have recenty appeared in the 
University Magazine. Only two of these 
sketches have fallen under the writer's 
notice. It is a matter of regret to see 
some errors in them, for which the author 
however was not responsible. It is hoped 
that all mistakes will be corrected when 
the articles are published in a volume. 
1. The distinguished President of the 
college in the days of the Revolution, and 
signer of the Declaration of Independence, 
was the Rev. Dr. Joh7t Witherspoon, not 
Samuel Witherspoon. 



3. Among the distinguished Alumni is 
included the Rev. Dr. Wm. H. Green, 
of the Theological Seminary. He was 
not graduated from the College of New 
Jersey, but at Lafayette College in 1840, 
and received an honorary D.D. here in 
1857. 

3. Again, in comparing the incident of 
Scott's presence at Commencement in 1814 
and his being addressed by the Valedic- 
torian with the similar incident in the 
career of Washington in 1783, Scott is 
styled a ' ^Major - OeneraV^ He was only a 
Colonel at the time, and was just recover- 
ing from the wound he had received at the 
battle of Lundy's Lane. He did not be- 
come a Major-General until twenty-five or 
thirty years afterward. Owing to the fact 
that he and Gen. Gaines received their 
commissions on the same day. Gen. 
Macomb, who was their junior, was pro- 
moted over their heads in view of the 
natural rivalry between his seniors. Gen. 
Gaines was the senior of Gen. Scott by 
two hours, but the latter was usually 
considered the better officer. When Gen. 
Macomb died Gen. Scott was appointed to 
the highest position in the army, and re- 
tained it until after the outbreak of the 
Rebellion, when he retired on account of 
his advanced age. Like Washington, he 
was a man of splendid physique, upwards 
of six feet high, and none who saw him, 
especially in uniform, could help admiring 
his splendid appearance. The writer re- 
members as a boy seeing him as he re- 
viewed a line of troops. He also had from 
Gen. Scott's own lips the account of his 
visit to Princeton in 1814, the conferring 



upon him of the degree of Master of Arts 
by the Board of Trustees of the College and 
of his election as an honary member of 
the American Whig Society. He studied 
law at William aud Mary College and 
was a practicing lawyer before he entered 
the army. Speaking of the honors con- 
ferred he said to the writer with a laugh, 
" although like Shakespeare I knew ' small 
Latin and less Greek,' the Virginian 
students in the College and Society would 
have it that I was a very learned man." 
This mention of Scott, however, has led 
the writer away from his simple purpose 
of correcting historical errors. 

4. In these Princeton sketches it is 
stated that the National Flag that was 
hoisted over Nassau Hall after the firing 
upon Fort Sumter in 1861 was taken 
down by Southern students. This is 
another mistake. Although he may have 
felt unwilling to wound the feelings of 
the Southern students yet it was removed 
by order of the President of the college 
simply because of the injury it was doing 
to the cupola when the wind blew 
strongly, as he told the writer with some 
indignation in his tone when he heard 
that his action was unfavorably criticized. 
The flag was made in the room of one of 
the students well known to the writer, 
who also witnessed the raising of the 
second flag to which allusion is made. 

5. Another mistake is the statement 
that the student who was " ducked," or 
placed under the pump, for uttering dis- 
loyal sentiments, was a Southern student. 
The students from the South were treated 
with great kindness and consideration, 
and no effort was made to interfere with 
their personal liberty or freedom of 
speech. It was because the student was 
a Northern man giving utterance to 



offensive and disloyal opinions that he 
received such rough treatment at the 
hands of his fellow students. They were 
really in quest of another and much more 
objectional student, and failing to find 
him they seized upon one whose utter- 
ances were those of a thoughtless young 
boy, who probably meant no harm. He 
remained in college, and subsequently 
went through the halls singing, 'I'm for 
the Union ; I'm for the Union still." He 
was regularly graduated. 

It must be stated again that the author 
of the Princeton Sketches is not respon- 
sible for the mistakes herein corrected, 
and was very glad to have his attention 
called to them. 

The writer of this communication has 
frequently corrected the numerous false 
reports and ridiculous stories in reference 
to Aaron Burr in connection with Prince- 
ton. He entered the Sophomore Class, 
as was then quite common, and 
was graduated in 1773 at the early age of 
sixteen. He could not, therefore, have 
been so wild and wicked as has been rep- 
resented ; neither was he so precocious 
or remarkable for scholarship as tradition 
states, for he was the lowest in this re- 
spect of those who received speeches at 
Commencement, as the programme of the 
Commencement of 1772 shows. 

The statement that he once reproved Dr. 
Samuel S. Smith for arriving late at a 
meeting of the Cliosophic Society is sim- 
ply as untrue as many others. Burr was 
an undergraduate member of the society 
for only about a year— 1771-72— and Dr. 
Smith was never a member of that Society, 
but was a member and one of the found- 
ers of the American Whig Society in 1769. 

The story connecting with Burr's the 
name of a young person who died and 



was buried in Princeton is simply in- 
famous and utterly without foundation. 

So the stories by various authors about 
his funeral, the monument over his grave, 
its erection in the night, &c., are creations 
of the imagination. There was not the 
slightest mystery or secrecy about the 
matter. He died in New York in 1836, 
his remains were brought by the Camden 
& Amboy Railroad to Hightstown, whence 
they were brought to Princeton in a hearse 
driven by Mr. Allen, who has just died. 
A number of prominent gentlemen from 
New York and its vicinity accompanied 
the body. The procession was met outside 
of the town by the Princeton Blues, and 
the funeral ceremonies took place in the 
College Chapel, Dr. Carnahan preaching 
the funeral sermon, the students generally 
attending the funeral, and the Cliosophic 
Society appropriately honoring his mem- 
ory, as he was one of its earliest and most 
distin guished members. A slab was ob 
tained for his grave, but as the person 
who had ordered it had not fully paid for 
it it was not erected. The present monu- 
ment was erected nearly twenty years 
subsequently by a relative out of the pro- 
ceeds of a small piece of property belong- 
ing to Col. Burr. The gentleman in 
whose marble yard it was made, and 
whose workmen erected it, was known to 
the writer and conversed with him about 
it. The mutilations of it and of the 
slabs over the graves of the early Presi- 
dents of the college are acts of Vandalism 
deserving the severest condemnation. 

It may not be uninteresting to add that 
in the last years of his life Col. Burr was 



accustomed to spend a part of each yeaf 
in Princeton. His law office is still 
standing in Reed Street, New York, just 
in the rear of the Stewart Building. It is 
a plain brick building two stories in 
height with an old fashioned inclined 
cellar door encroaching upon the pave- 
ment. For years it was occupied by the 
janitor or porter of the Stewart building 
and although the ground is so valuable in 
this neighborhood the building has not 
been removed and was even unoccupied 
when the writer last saw it. From this 
office Col. Burr used to come to the 
Nassau Hotel here whose proprietor used 
to keep for him a particular kind of wine 
and consulted his tastes in other respects. 
He used to run races in the yard of the 
hotel with one of the young sons of the 
proprietor and was much elated at his 
victories, not being aware that the boy 
had been carefully instructed not to out- 
run him. 

It has recently been announced in the 
College Bulletin and elsewhere that the 
One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of 
the College is to be celebrated in 1896. 
This would be a most serious mistake. The 
first Commencement was held in Newark, 
Nov. 9, 1748; the Centennial in which 
Historicus participated was celebrated 
June 30, 1847. Therefore the hundred 
and fiftieth anniversary should take place 
not in 1896 but in June, 1897. 

The undersigned will rejoice if by this 
communication he can prevent errors from 
gaining currency as the facts of history. 
Truth is his only object. 

HiSTOKICUS. 



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